The League of Nations
New Measures Against The Drug Evil
THE Opium Central Board at its recent meeting at Geneva got its constitution settled and framed plans for its immediate action. That deliberately crude announeement will convey little or nothing except to close students of the problem of the traffic in narcotics. Yet it represents the beginning of a new phase in the perpetual warfare waged under the aegis of the League of Nations against this particular scourge. Diverse as the activities of the League of Nations are, each of them illustrates in its own field a uniform method of approach to the problem concerned. The League organizes 'internationally. Governments aft in accordance nationally. The action is by free agreement, and the League's part is to 'think out the most effective method, not to impose it. So • it is in the case of the opium traffic.
In this field more than most it is only by the loyal and resolute co-operation of individual Governments that reforms on the necessity of which everyone is agreed in theory can be achieved. And that co-operation is, frankly, not yet forthcoming to the degree that it 'should be in the case of the traffic in narcotics.
THE RECORD UP To DATE.
Since we are beginning a new chapter in the conflict not much need be said about the old chapters. But something, at any rate, must be. Until the League of Nations came into existence international action, or rather common national action, in restriction of the traffic was based on the Hague Convention of 1912, which aimed at the control of the distribution of the raw opium and also provided for a rigorous restriction of the trade in prepared opium, the products of which were to be confined to strictly medical and legitimate purposes. The Convention had however .obtained comparatively few ratifications by 1914, and then, of course, the War cut across this as it cut across every beneficial reform measure.
After the Peace the initiative in the matter of drug control passed to the new-formed League of Nations, Article XXIII of the Covenant giving the League "general supervision over the execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs." The advantage of that, as in so many similar cases, was that it meant that the situa- tion was kept under continuous survey by the permanent officials of an international institution capable both of originating new measures and of exercising some degree, at any rate, of pressure on countries dilatory in the execution of their obligations. Governments are not fond of being arraigned in public, even when the criticisms which they merit are veiled by the conventions of diplomatic courtesy.
Even so the League has found itself faced with almost insuperable difficulties in this matter of the drug traffic. Countries where the evil is most rife and from which it can spread most rapidly to adjacent countries are either, like Turkey, not members of the League at all or, like China, plunged in an administrative chaos which rules out any effective restriction altogether. Smuggling of opium deri- vatives, moreover, is extraordinarily lucrative and at the same time extraordinarily difficult to detect, since consign- ments of morphine, heroin or cocaine equal to hundreds or thousands of doses are so inconsiderable in volume as to make their concealment a matter of singular simplicity. However vigilant Customs officials may be, they can never hope to trap more than a fraction of the consignments of drugs smuggled across frontiers.
But there are other points than frontiers at which restriction can be applied and the League's aim has been to apply it all along the line. Growth of the poppy itself must be limited. If that could be done effectively in China and Turkey and Persia, as it has been done effectively in India, the problem would be well on the way to solution. Thrt these countries only produce raw opium, not the finished drug, which con- stitutes the real evil in the Western world. In regard to that, the main point is to check the illicit traffic. The League has, in fact, succeeded in giving reality to what is known as the Export and Import Certificate system, providing that the import and export of narcotics shall be carried on only under licence, and that no Government shall grant a licence for export except in exchange for a certificate from the importing country guaranteeing that the supplies in question are needed for strictly medical and scientific purposes.
SOME DIFFICULTIES.
This system has worked well in cases where Governments are conscientious, as that of Great Britain habitually is. What can happen when a certain laxity prevails is demon- strated by various seizures reported from time to time to the League. One of the most notable came to light in Holland last year, when a house known as the Naarden firm was discovered, as the result of investigations by the Dutch police, to have exported,during 1927 and the first half of 1928, 932 kilogrammes of morphine, 3,015 kilogrammes of heroin and 60 kilogrammes of cocaine. These went to China, Japan, Turkey, and Austria,and further small consignments reached other countries. What this means may be gauged by the fact that the heroin exported by this single Dutch firm to four countries is equal to over twenty times the annual legitimate needs of Great Britain.
It was to meet this kind of difficulty that a new Convention on the traffic in drugs was framed by the League in 1925. It took more than three years to come into operation, for lack of the necessary ratifications, and it is only now that the Central Board created by it is beginning its work. The function of the Central Board will be to endeavour to trace illicit transactions by means of statistics. Here, again, much will depend on the good faith of Governments. If that is forthcoming, a new weapon of considerable value should be placed in the hands of the League, The intention is that Governments shall supply to the Central Board regularly an estimate of their annual needs in the matter of narcotics for strictly medicinal and scientific purposes. In some cases, no doubt, the estimates will appear excessive and will be made the subject of reasoned discussion between the Board and the Government. In addition, there will be forwarded to the Board actual statistics of imports and exports and manufactures of drugs quarter by quarter. Comparison of the figures thus obtained will show pretty clearly if any country is securing substantially larger supplies of narcotics than its own estimates have shown it to need. In such a case contact will be established between the Board and the Government concerned, and the matter will, if necessary, be brought before the League Council.
VISIBLE PROGRESS.
Not as many nations as could be desired have yet ratified the Convention by which the Board was created and, of course, only those which have ratified are pledged to co-operate with it, but the tendency is for the number of ratifications to increase steadily and international public opinion will exert a silent pressure on Governments that are so far hanging back. The Board, so far, is only completing its own organiza- tion and has not yet begun to receive statistics from Govern. ments. It is composed of capable men, none of them representing Governments, but all chosen by the League Council for their individual knowledge and character. The experiment which they are responsible for directing will be watched with anxious interest by all who have ever concerned themselves with the problem of narcotics.
The question of opium-smoking stands apart from the question of the manufactured drug. Smoking is confined to the Far East and measures against it are largely paralysed so long as opium from China is flooding adjacent countries. On the initiative of the British Government, which is sub- scribing generously to the cost, a Commission is about to visit the countries most concerned to discover how far the restrictive measures at present in force are effective and what could, or should, be done to strengthen them. When it has reported, a conference of the opium-smoking countries will be called.
H. WILSON HARMS.
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